Thanks Loet, for a very clear and concise exposition of an approach that
I agree with.
I'm curious about your use of the word 'dualistic'. Dualism usually
suggests that there are two aspects to a single phenomenon. As I
interpret your post, you are saying that information and meaning are
separate concepts. Otherwise, we are led to inquire into the nature of
the unity of which they are both aspects, which gets us back where we
started.
So I interpret 'dualistic' here to mean 'two concepts that are
intertwined in the emergence of events'. Is this parallel to, for
example, atomic structure and fluid dynamics (perhaps there are better
examples)? If so, does that imply a hierarchy (i.e. you can have
information without meaning, but not meaning without information)? This
makes sense to me, though it is not what I usually associate with the
word 'dualistic'.
Dai
On 04/10/17 08:16, Loet Leydesdorff wrote:
Nobody of us is able to provide an operative framework and a single
(just one!) empirical testable prevision able to assess "information".
Dear colleague,
One should not confuse the confusion on the list with the clarity of
the concept information in information theory. This definition is
operational (e.g., in bits). Your computer would not work without this
definition (1 byte = 8 bits). The problem is that this definition of
information as uncertainty is counter-intuitive.
The search for an intuitive definition of information has led to
unclear definitions. In a recent book, Hidalgo (2015, at p. 165), for
example, has defined “information” with reference “to the order
embodied in codified sequences, such as those found in music or DNA,
while /knowledge and knowhow /refer to the ability of a system to
process information.” However, codified knowledge can be abstract
and—like music—does not have to be “embodied” (e.g., Cowan, David, &
Foray, 2000).
Beyond Hidalgo’s position, Floridi (2010, p. 21) proposed “a general
definition of information” according to which “the well-formed data
are /meaningful/” (italics of the author). Luhmann (1995, p. 67)
posits that “all information has meaning.” In his opinion, information
should therefore be considered as a selection mechanism. Kauffman et
al. (2008, at p. 28) added to the confusion by defining information as
“natural selection.”
Against these attempt to bring information and meaning under a single
denominator--and to identify variation with selection--I argue for a
dualistic perspective (as did Prof. Zhong in a previous email).
Information and meaning should not be confounded. Meaning is generated
from redundancies (Bateson, 1972, p. 420; Weaver, 1949; see
Leydesdorff /et al./, 2017).
Best,
Loet
*References:*
Bateson, G. (1972). /Steps to an Ecology of Mind/. New York: Ballantine.
Cowan, R., David, P., & Foray, D. (2000). The Explicit Economics of
Knowledge Codification and Tacitness. /Industrial and Corporate
Change, 9/(2), 211-253.
Floridi, L. (2010). /Information: A very short introduction/. Oxford,
UK: Oxford University Press.
Hidalgo, C. (2015). /Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order,
from Atoms to Economies/. New York: Basic Books.
Kauffman, S., Logan, R. K., Este, R., Goebel, R., Hobill, D., &
Shmulevich, I. (2008). Propagating organization: an enquiry. /Biology
and Philosophy, 23/(1), 27-45.
Leydesdorff, L., Johnson, M., & Ivanova, I. (2017). Toward a Calculus
of Redundancy: Signification, Codification, and Anticipation in
Cultural Evolution.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3030525 .
Luhmann, N. ([1984] 1995). /Social Systems/. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press.
Weaver, W. (1949). Some Recent Contributions to the Mathematical
Theory of Communication. In C. E. Shannon & W. Weaver (Eds.), /The
Mathematical Theory of Communication/ (pp. 93-117.). Urbana:
University of Illinois Press.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loet Leydesdorff
Professor, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)
l...@leydesdorff.net <mailto:l...@leydesdorff.net>;
http://www.leydesdorff.net/
Associate Faculty, SPRU, <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/>University of
Sussex;
Guest Professor Zhejiang Univ. <http://www.zju.edu.cn/english/>,
Hangzhou; Visiting Professor, ISTIC,
<http://www.istic.ac.cn/Eng/brief_en.html>Beijing;
Visiting Fellow, Birkbeck <http://www.bbk.ac.uk/>, University of London;
http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en
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